Why does homosexuality exist?

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I agree with that one too.

If there's no biological purpose to something, it generally doesn't last very long. There are traits and behaviors that do not serve an adaptive purpose but are not maladaptive (spandrel traits); I wouldn't qualify homosexuality as one of these.

There was a study I read about recently that concluded that female hyenas (IIRC) who produced a high number of male offspring produced more feminine hormones in-utero with later male births than earlier ones. IIRC it's called the Maternal Dominance Hypothesis.

It wouldn't explain all occurrences of homosexuality in all species, but it is one theory about why it exists.

Homosexuality reduces the competition for fertile females and from an evolutionary perspective it would make sense that if you have a large number of male offspring you don't want them competing against each other because that will ultimately reduce the chance of your genes surviving.

I guess tuna fish exist because they can. I don't know about anything else.

All DNA molecules came from other DNA molecules. In sexually reproducing species, that's got something to do with individual organisms in the past breeding.

The same question definitely applies to the "aspie gene," if there is such a thing. I sent two DNA packages into the future, one of them aspie, but that was a fluke, and with all due respect to Gould, I'm not convinced that flukes are the primary influence on evolution, unless you're talking about the evolution of whales.

Maybe having some aspie guy working alone at a farm every day fixing stuff and sitting around alone every night is somehow benefiting this tiny mountain redneck town where I live. I can't imagine how, but suppose it is. Benefiting the community doesn't influence the number of copies of my DNA that will be around in the future.

If our culture needs the gay influence, that abstraction isn't going to magically produce copies of gay people's DNA. Like the black guys in the army used to say, "What you need and what you gonna get is two different things."

I suspect that both homosexuality and asperger's have a genetic basis. Some process I don't understand is maintaining these genes in the human population in remarkably high numbers.

In fact, all things that exist do so because they can. If they couldn't exist, then they wouldn't exist.

I want to clarify that I don't want to look at it as a disorder or an abnormality. I just think of it as something that could have been bred out by now. Since it hasn't, it must not be entirely genetic, methinks. However, I can't just wake up tommorow morning and screw every girl in sight with pleasure. It just doesn't work that way.

twas humor

Me ole pal J once suggested some 12 years ago in High School that "homosexuality is natures way of saying these genes, should not be passed on".

It is too simplistic to consider people as purely heterosexual or homosexual - AS people should understand that concept more than most!

Homosexuality exists in most (all?) animal species, clearly, it is not an evolutionary disadvantage or such sexually orientated animals would not exist. Whether they bring advantages is another interesting question.

Human sexuality occurs on a spectrum (it is not single gene controlled), hence you would expect that (as with AS) the majority of the population will be ‘normal’, some will be outside this range and be bisexual or homosexual – it is just logical.

I like this one the best.

I think too many people are thinking about the wrong things concerning homosexuality.

First... homosexuals are as capable of producing offspring as any other sexual orientation.
Secondly... they do.
Thirdly... the offspring that homosexuals do produce are not necessarily homosexual themselves.

Everyone is focusing on Genetics.
I have been seeing more ideas coming out surrounding what happens to a fetus en-utero and the changes that come about during that period.

It's possible that sexual orientation is not genetically driven but influenced in the womb.
Same with other things like Gender, and maybe many more 'disorders', 'malformations' etc. that we do not fully understand yet.

But, back to my opening statement.
Someone's sexual orientation does not preclude them from having offspring... from passing along their DNA.
And there is more than one way to do this besides sexual intercourse.

Sexuality is something that brings no harm to an individual nor to society.
There is nothing 'WRONG' with a person being homosexual.
There is no reason to think of it as an anomoly, disease, malformation, sin....

The people in society that label it as wrong are only doing so from an emotional point-of-view.
I will include their religious diatribe against homosexuality in this also.
There is nothing physically inherent in a homosexual that is truly offensive to nature or society.

If people want to start harping about the bath houses, gay sex in public bathrooms, AIDS, etc., it should be remembered that none of these are biologically intrinsic in homosexuals.

Adaptive traits aren't "bred out" of successful organisms. Things just don't work that way. Homosexuality is not maladaptive; it exists in many, if not all, species of a certain level of complexity. Dolphins are known for having same-sex relationships for sex and for companionship and also for the advantages that the relationship brings from a survival perspective.

Hormones influence genes in-utero, so I wouldn't say that any of the studies regarding hormones are arguing against genetic determination, just explaining one possible mechanism that results in genetic determination.

Sexuality is a complex issue and I doubt it will ever be pinned down to a gene or two.

Well, humans are animals and homosexual behavior is common in many species:

http://www.livescience.com/bestimg/index.php?url=&cat=gayanimals

Pretty interesting stuff. Excerpt:

I think your assertions may not be correct. Just because someone prefers a certain sex, doesn't mean they can't mate with the opposite sex. It could be that in certain situations homosexual tendencies, provided the individuals would still mate with members of the opposite sex for reproductive purposes, conferred some significant advantage onto the group. Perhaps more resistance to internal discord that could result in open violence between members? Maybe something else...

Our closest relatives, bonobos (aka pygmy chimpanzees) are highly sexual creatures. They use sex for a number of different social purposes, from greeting to conflict resolution. This means that most are behaviorally bisexual.

Humans are also more sexual than most other animals. No matter what our orientation, we have sex more frequently and for purposes other than reproduction. I think that the diversity in human sexuality may have something to do with the unusually high sex drive shared by our species in general.

I think its genetic, with all the permutations, homosexuality is bound to occur, as is any kind of variation.

I always see human differences as being like a chequerboard, going from black across to white, each square being a lighter or darker shade of the previous ones, all unique.

GREAT ANSWER!

Good point. Sappho, the poet, lived in 600 BC... the word "lesbian" comes from her, because she was a famous poet and philosopher who wrote erotic poetry about women.

So... I know homosexuality has "existed" for at least 2600 years.